1902-07-26 Saturday Musings

Saturday Musings Spectator July 26 07, 1902

        What is the world coming to? A great Canadian banking institution has issued a peremptory order that none of its clerks who are not in a receipt of $1,500 a year will be permitted to marry and remain in service of the bank. Other banks, we understand, allow marriage when the clerk gets $1,000 a year. And now comes the New York Central railway forbidding kissing in train sheds or stations, or on the platforms of cars. If the bank persists in its prohibitory law – and there are some laws that prohibit- what is to prevent other companies or institutions employing labor from forbidding their men to marry? Here is Hamilton, according to the last census. We have nearly 3,00 of surplus (ILLEGIBLE) anxiously awaiting the time when some bank clerk or other young man with even much less than a thousand dollars salary will come along and make formal proposals for a life partnership. Why should not bank clerks marry unless they are above the thousand dollar class? It is more than likely that the ancestors of a majority of them fell in love and married and lived on a salary not more than half that prescribed by the bank officials, and their future lives were prosperous and happy, even though they had to cut the corners pretty close in their younger days. The fathers and mothers of bank clerks, and of every other class of workmen, studied in the school of economy, and if they are living now, it is on Easy Street, where the cares and burdens of life rest lightly on their shoulders. The early settlers of Hamilton did not begin life on $1,000 a year, not even half that amount, yet they left a godly heritage to their children.

        The chances are that some soured old dyspeptic was the author of that rule promulgated by the managers of the bank. He has no memory of the past, for his mind and soul have become so absorbed in money-making that he has forgotten the dear old mother who trained him in his youth, and the bright, young girl to whom he gave his hand and heart half a century ago. There was an apostle of old, named Paul, who delivered a pronouncement against marriage, but he had the good sense to qualify his objections. And even Paul could not stop his followers from mating, and it is doubtful if the order issued by the bank officials is going to reduce the demand for marriage licenses to any remarkable extent. In the name of the 3,000 surplus female population of Hamilton, the Spectator raises its voice in protest against any such prohibitory law. Prohibit bank clerks, and all other young men from playing the horses and betting on the rise or fall of stocks or produce; stop them from educating their appetites up to the high ball standard (ILLEGIBLE) from risking their salaries on a pair of fascinating jacks when there is a fat jackpot to be opened; prohibit these things, and the life of the young men will be brighter, but stop monkeying with marriage, which is the most sacred relation in life. Rather encourage young men to begin life in company with pure women, who will inspire them to higher ideas, than in the ordinary education acquired in bachelors’ clubs. It is the fast young clerks who make free use of the funds of the bank, not the man who are happily married and spend their evenings at home with their families. “Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do.” And young fellows without home or family ties are more apt to be the ones led astray.

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        Fancy Senator Chauncey Depew, the head official of the New York Central road, sanctioning an order that prohibits kissing. The old fellow has lately renewed his youth by taking to himself a second Mrs. Depew, yet he would prevent tender osculations in the sheds or stations or on the platforms of the trains that are just ready to pull out. There is always the last moment when lovers separate, and what is more tempting than a pair of ruby lips? But we will not go into this subject for fear of being led to think unkindly of Chancey Depew, and the New York Central. Uncle Joe Wallace down at the Grand Trunk, or our own more youthful friend, Mr. Backus, at the T. H. & B. station, would never for a moment think of issuing such prohibitory orders. In fact, they rather enjoy the tender osculations they see almost every hour of the day.

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        Were it not for the reckless drivers of delivery wagons, the bicyclists who are wheeling against time, and the people who have appendicitis instead of the old-fashioned stomach ache that used to come in the green fruit season, the doctors and undertakers would have hard scratching to make a living in this healthy city, where the climate is always salubrious, and the health officers have nothing to do but draw their salaries. While all of Canada and part of the country south of us have been deluged with July rains, Hamilton has had just enough of the downpour to give its citizens a rest from watering flower gardens and lawns, and give the horses and drivers of water carts a holiday. The sun never ceases to shine upon this blessed city at the hours when sunshine is in order, and even though last month and this are memorable on the record books of the weather clerks, yet fans – the baseball kind – have not gone out of fashion nor has the improvident young man been compelled to keep his winter overcoat out of pawn. Happy Hamiltonians! Though ribald Toronto pencil pushers may throw stones at this city and say all manner of unkind about it, yet is there is such a place as heaven on this earth, it is located in the valley between our towering mountain and the cool waters of the bay. Still, with all our blessings, the police should put a stop to bicycle racing and the fast driving of delivery wagons in the streets. Give the doctors and the undertakers a chance to take a summer vacation.

1905-11-04 Saturday Musings

Saturday Musings Spectator November 04, 1905

        The veteran soldiers of the British army, the men who served during the American was of 1861-1865, the boys who shouldered a musket to put down the Riel rebellion, the raid of the Fenians in 1866, now and then tell stories of their first baptism under fire; and the true soldier will tell you that the first crack of a musket or a rifle took all the bravado out of him, and gladly would he be back at the home fireside and leave the glory to the other fellows. The boys in khaki who went from Hamilton to South Africa have probably more adventures to tell for war, with its improved arms that can shoot at a long distance, has got to be hell indeed. One of the boys who went out with the Hamilton contingent tells of his first experience under fire. “Our officers,” said the returned warrior, “kept us back, for we were not numerous enough, nor had we much confidence in our own courage to face the leaden hail of the Boers. Those old fellows were brought up with the musket, and their religious frenzy had no fear of the inexperienced young fellows who had rallied under the colours of Old England. It was prudent on the part of our officers, for the first murderous volley from those Boer sharpshooters sounded like the rattle of musketry along the line when our home regiment are out on the 24^th of May and firing the national salute; but the sharp ping of the bullets as they whistled over our heads made us duck down like we used to bow our heads in certain parts of the church service when we were good boys and attended the cathedral down on James street. Our volley penetrated the ranks of the Boers, while theirs whistled past our ears and respected our sacred Canadian persons. It was the first I had faced fire, nor was the only one that dodged. I had often heard of the old Crimean soldiers tell their experiences, and everyone of them confessed to having been a dodger. It is a physical effect, independent of the will. If you could only feel how each shot electrifies you! It is like a whip on a racer’s legs. The balls whistle past you, turn up the earth around you, kill one, wound another, and in time you hardly notice them. You grow intoxicated; the smell of gunpowder mounts to your brain. Your eye becomes bloodshot, and your look is fixed on the enemy. There is something of all the passions in that terrible passion excited in a soldier by the sight of blood and the tumult of battle. Your comrade is shot down by your side, and this arouses the demon within you; you want to avenge his death. Every soldier testifies to the peculiar intoxication that is produced by being in battle. There is an infatuating influence about the smell of powder, the shrill whistle of a bullet, and the sight of human blood, that instantly transforms men from cowards to heroes and devils. None can tell of the nature and mystery of that influence, but those who have been on the firing line themselves. Did I ever kill an enemy? Well, that’s a question that no soldier wants to answer, even to himself. I hope not. It was the fellows who were always sick when the long roll sounded or who dodged when trouble was coming who did all the killing. The fellows who faced the bullets didn’t kill anybody.”

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        In the year 1859, a young lady, whose home was in Toronto, in a fit of disgust with the worthiness of her surroundings, decided to enter a convent and spend her life in preparation for the world beyond the river of death. She was the daughter of a Protestant father and mother, and the parents and friends were much opposed to the course she had taken. She had traveled in France, and while being educated in a convent in Paris had seen Catholicism in its most attractive form. She had fallen in love with the spirituality of the nuns, and on her return to Toronto decided to renounce the world and retire from it. There was a jar somewhere in her home life – it may have been a disappointment in a love affair – but whatever the cause she went quietly out from home one day leaving a note to her parents, telling them of her decision. Naturally her Protestant parents rebelled and made every effort to secure an audience with their daughter, to try and persuade her to give up what to them was a mere fantasy of the brain. The girl was accomplished in all that made life bright and pleasant: fortune was in store for her, her father being prominent in business affairs. The newspapers discussed the question pro and con, and it became the theme of general conversation in Toronto. The Leader of that city took the ground that as the young had arrived at that age when she should be the judge of her own future, that no one, not even her parents, had the right to try and coerce her into their way of thinking. The pursuit of her parents became a matter of public interest, and she was taken from one convent to another to avoid their getting a sight of her. Evidently, the girl had decided for herself, and there was no evidence that she repented or had any desire to return to home and the world.

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        Men think it a hardship nowadays if they have to pay 5 per cent for the use of money on mortgage, yet there are old-timers who can remember the hard times in the latter part of the ‘50’s when they had to pay 12 per cent, and put up first-class landed security to get it. The banks could demand almost any interest on short loans, while private parties with money had no difficulty in getting as high as one and a half to two per cent a month from very needy borrowers. Money is now so cheap that a man has to have a big wad of it if he expects to live on interest. There are some, however, who get fabulous interest for small loans.

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        The death of Donald Dawson the other day recalls to memory of old-timers an experience that Donald had when he was a police officer in 1859. Nancy Duggan picked up a two dollar bill in the market, which had been dropped by someone in front of Kilgour’s stall. A bystander notified the constable of the find, and he went and demanded the money. Nancy refused to give it to anyone but the loser, but afterwards handed it over to Donald. Nancy then had the policeman brought before the police magistrate on the charge of forcibly taking the money from her, but the evidence was not strong enough to convince Ald. Browne, who presided that day in the police court, that any force had been used, and he dismissed the case. As there was no claimant for the two dollars, Ald. Browne decreed that the money should be turned over to her.

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        In the month of August, 1859, there was a rumour of a mysterious occurrence having taken place in the custom house of this city. There was quite a discrepancy between the returns of shippers and the manifests of vessels passing through the Burlington canal, the returns affecting the amount of canal tolls very seriously. An inquiry had been in progress for several days, and things were looking dark for some of the officials who had charge of that department of the customs. But suddenly the labour of the inquiry board was brought to a close, someone who had access to the customs house during the night having stolen the incriminating papers and destroyed them. As the proof was gone, there was nothing further to investigate, but those connected with that department felt that their tenure of office was uncomfortably insecure. The thing was hushed up, but a hint was thrown out that any further discrepancies in canal tolls would become a serious matter.

       

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        The first Catholic church built in Caledonia was formally dedicated on Saturday, July 31, 1859, by the Rt. Rev. Dr. Farrell, bishop of Hamilton, assisted by the Revs. Ladge and Northgreaves. Pontifical high mass was celebrated. The choir from St. Mary’s church, Hamilton, rendered the music, and the sermon was provided by Father Northgreaves. To the Rev. Father McNulty was due the credit of raising the funds for the erection of the church. It was a brick building and accommodated about 600 people. There was a large attendance of Protestants and Catholics at the destination, and the collections during the day’s services cleared up whatever shortage there was in the subscription list.

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        More than half a century ago Wm. Edgar, a native of Annan, Dumfrieshire, Scotland, came to Hamilton, arriving here early in 1854, and to the end of his long life, which occurred the other day, he was identified with the growth and prosperity of his adopted city. In his Scotland home, he was connected with the United Presbyterian church, but after his arrival here he associated himself with the Congregational church, and was a liberal contributor to the building of the present edifice in 1859 and a warm supporter of the Rev. Thomas Pullar, who was pastor of the church for a number of years. For fifteen years, he was superintendent of the Sunday school and treasurer of the church. Shortly after locating in Hamilton, he formed a partnership in the building business with David Edgar, his brother, and William Sharp, which continued until he engaged in the lumber business on the corner of York and Caroline streets. Later he was connected with Hugh Melville in the manufacture of furniture, barrels etc. This factory building was near the corner of Queen and Barton streets, and was burned down in 1864. The big chimney of the old factory is still standing. He then resumed the lumber business for a time, and then sold out and went to North Carolina at the close of the war to work some iron mines in which he had large interest, but which did not turn a financial success. Returning to Hamilton, he went into the manufacture of engines at the Beckett shops, and at one time was associated with the late William Turnbull in the foundry business on Mary street. He was what might be called a diversified man, and he plunged ahead until old age called a halt on his endeavours to make money. In the days when the Sons of Temperance and the Good Templars were working to redeem Hamilton from its drinking habits, William Edgar was active in both organizations. For several years he represented St. Mary’s ward in the City council. In his younger days, he was a Liberal in his political views, but at the time of the election of the Hon. Issac Buchanan to parliament he changed his politics and became an ardent Conservative. At the age of 85 years, he ended life’s journey and joined the large majority at the end of York street.

1902-05-10 Saturday Musings

Saturday Musings Spectator May 10, 1902

        It is a cheering sight, on a Saturday night, to see the crowd of men and women, the majority of them being in the morning of life, going in and out of the savings banks in Hamilton. They have received the wages for the week’s work, a potion of which is laid by for the proverbial rainy day which is almost sure to come in everyone’s life. Fortunate is he or she if there’s a comfortable nest egg laid aside in the bank, for while money is said to be the root of all evil, it is a powerful factor in brightening the lives of its possessors, if they know how to use it judiciously. The man or woman who forms the habit of laying by something, be it ever so little, on pay day, may always be relied upon to put it good use. The faculty for saving induces thrift and economy, and one may safely bet his last penny that such persons will never end their days in the house of refuge, or any other home of charity. There is an air of independence about the young people as they range in front of the bank counters and hand in their books and the small amount of their deposit. They have no great sums to lay by, but there is a satisfied smile on each face as they look at the figures, and in time the bottom will be reached and the total carried over to the top of the next page. To do this each pay day means self-denial, but the time may come when they will be thankful that savings banks were established to help the industrious and the frugal. What a contrast there is between the young man coming out of the savings bank on Saturday, and that other young man who makes a break for the saloon as soon as he draws his week’s pay. They may be of the same age and of equal skill in the workshop. Follow them on down through the years and see where they come out. The one that began life by making regular visits to the savings bank has some capital, be it little or much, to start him in business, while the one who tarried too long at the high ball emporium or spent the evenings in developing his muscle in punching billiard balls is preparing for the time when his employers will have no further use for him because he has passed the allotted time in this new century, when men are condemned to starve or be shot when they pass the age of forty-five. Try the savings bank, boys, in the morning of life, and when the years come upon you, there will be no mourning because of misspent days.

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          Those who love  real vocal music, without any trembling in the voice that denotes chills cultivated in the Dundas swamps, had rare treat in the Westminister Abbey choir that sang so sweetly in Association hall last Tuesday evening. It was not a large audience that greeted the singers, but it was an appreciative, judging from the clamorous encore after almost every number on the program. There was melody and harmony in the voices that the old English songs ring out, and not in the rendering of the entire program was there a dissonant note. Each voice was so well balanced that the listener could hardly distinguish the alto from the tenor, and even the bass, usually a part that stands out prominently, was so softly modulated that the whole setting of the songs blended grandly. Such singing is rare nowadays, for so many fads have been introduced that the natural tones seem lost in the wobbling. Many of Hamilton’s young singers have sweet voices, and it would be pleasing to hear them were it not for the tremolo that creates discord when two or more try to sing a duet or quartet. The really good singers never attempt any such fads.

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          Speaking of singing brings up the new fad that is being introduced in Methodist churches – surpliced choirs. Wouldn’t that jar the old fathers of Methodism? Fancy a denomination that was founded by Wesley as a protest against the ritualism of the Anglicans now forgetting its early simplicity and bedecking its singers in surplices and mortar board hats. One of the reasons given for the change is that young ladies in the choirs are becoming so vain that they try to outdo each other in the creations of the milliner’s art and in the gay colours of the gowns they wear. To suppress this tendency to frivolity and pride, the official boards decrees that surplices must be worn so that there will be no rivalry in dress. From the organ loft to the pulpit is only a step, so the next thing Methodists can prepare for is to see their minister robed in a black gown while he is preaching of the humility of the early Christians who planted the seeds of Methodism in Canada.

1905-11-18 Saturday Musings

Saturday Musings Spectator November 18, 1905

        How sharper than a serpent’s tooth is a thankless child, or words to that effect. Parents with young children look forward to the time when the boy or girl will become their mainstay. Parents never think it’s a burden to work and provide for their children, and are always ready to make any sacrifice rather than they should suffer for a moment. To the credit of our humanity, it can be said that if a majority of the children remember the obligations they owe to their parents, and under no circumstances forget those who cared for them in their childhood days. To this, however, there are some sad exceptions. Talk with Relief Officer McMenemy and he can tell you stories of parents in old age being forgotten by children and left to the care of public charity. Many years ago, a man was engaged in business in Hamilton, who prospered fairly well, and he might have done better had he only taken care of some part of his earnings. He was married and had a family, and while his children were growing up, there was nothing too good for them. His boys were given a good education in the public schools and business college, and were all prepared to make their way in the world. No money was spared in their education or in providing them with many of the luxuries of life. The boys went out into the world and prospered. Not so with the father. He built up a strong appetite for intoxicating liquors and in due course of time, the foundation was knocked from under his business. Look in the old directories that were published in the fifties and there you will find his name as one of the prosperous businessmen of the city. Whiskey drinking and business success never go hand in hand; you must love one and despise the other. A red nose and a bright eye never go together. The harder the man drank, the quicker his business went down. His good wife, who had prayed for his reformation and had suffered all the misery of living with a drunkard, one day laid down and died. The burden of life was too much for her. She could have bourn with poverty caused by misfortune in business, but to be dragged down from comfort and affluence through the depraved appetite of the man she loved in her youth and the father of their children was too much for the weary soul. The home was broken up and the boys went out, never to return. The business kept dwindling down but he only drank the more. Did you ever know a man who could not get a wife, even if he wanted one? Our old Hamiltonian, even though he drank deeply, was able to get another wife, for he still had his business and some property. He was insured in one of the fraternal orders and also was a member of other lodges.

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          The crash came one day and the sheriff closed the business house, and the man who had a mortgage on his real estate foreclosed. The second wife, who had married him for a home, gathered up what she could of the remnants and left. Deserted by his children, the wife of his youth lying out in God’s acre at the end of York street, and wife No. 2 enjoying freedom from a drunkard’s home, he went down step by step until even old associates, and men who patted him on the back and called him a good fellow so long as he had a dollar to pass over the bar, dropped him. Only a few stood by him, and they were real friends indeed. His policy of insurance provided that after a certain age, a part of it would be available for his support, and it it that today that pays his board. The sons he had educated and spent money on lavishly in his days of prosperity, before whiskey had downed him, were appealed to by Relief Officer McMenemy to send even the smallest pittance to help their father to keep out of the House of Refuge, but their ears and their hearts were closed. The wife found out that he had a sum of money to his credit in the fraternal insurance order, and she has been making great efforts to secure it, but has failed. The old man still drinks whiskey when he can get it and people will give a man whiskey when they will not give him bread – and now and then his bilious habits run him into trouble with the police. Half a century ago that poor unfortunate who is now down at the lowest depths, was a prominent figure in social and business circles in Hamilton. Strong drink dragged him down from the heights of prosperity to be a gutter drunkard. His life is a lesson that might well be studied by young men who are educating their appetites to a love of intoxicants. There is nothing surer in this world than poverty and a drunkard’s grave for the man or woman who begins life in moderate dissipation. Appetite grows quickly, and before one knows it, the inevitable has come. A man died in Muscatine, Iowa, the other night of delirium tremens. When the reporters called the next morning, the wife and ten children were gathered about the kitchen fire. When asked for particulars, the released wife took pencil and paper and wrote te following for the reporters :

          “Please do not say that the family deeply mourn for their dead. For years he has been husband and father only in name. For affection given, only blows and curses have been given in return. It is better for him that he is dead and better for us. Now that the long dark chapter is ended, do not make us hypocrites by publishing that which is not true.”

          My tippling friend, save your good wife the necessity of writing such a terrible note for the Hamilton papers.

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          In Charles Durand’s reminiscences, one finds many interesting items about the early days in and around Hamilton. It was the custom in the first settlement of this country to bury the dead on their farms. There were no public cemeteries. One among the first burial in Hamilton was the block on the southeast corner of King and Wellington streets – now owned by the First Methodist Church – and among the old headstones will be found names of people who died early in the century. Many were buried in fields or small nooks in farms. Durand’s mother was buried near the home under the mountain ridge, and George Hamilton, who afterward bought the Durand farm, also sleeps in the same spot. One of the ancient owners of the Peter H. Hamilton farm by the name of Wedge was buried near where Wm. Hendrie’s residence stands. Out at Dundurn, Sir Allan Macnab had a family graveyard where he and his son are buried. In Dundas, there was no cemetery prior to 1835. Old Mr. Leslie, who kept a drug and book store in that village in the early days was buried on the hill to the south on the Hamilton road, and a number of the ancient citizens of Dundas were buried on the same hill. In 1832, a young man named Baby, belonging to a respectable French family, committed suicide by taking laudanum. He was the first body buried on the south hill. There is no more beautiful spot than the Hamilton cemetery, out on the Burlington heights, and since it has passed under the care of the cemetery board, it has become a credit to the city. There is no more sacred spot than where our beloved sleep. In the course of time when all the old fences are removed from the lots and the graves are leveled and sodded so that they can be kept neatly, then will the cemetery comfort the hearts of those who mourn and not be repulsive when one visits the graves of friends. Across the bay, the Holy Sepulcher cemetery is finely located and its maintenance is creditable to the church that controls it.

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          In that venerable copy of the Hamilton Free Press, printed in 1836, of which we made mention in last Saturday’s musings, we find a prophecy which will read queer in these advanced days of the twentieth century. The prophet believed the time not far distant when steamships would run from Halifax to Valencia, on the coast of Ireland, in less than a week, and guests from New York might dine in London on invitations of a fortnight’s standing. This has been more than realized, for the ocean greyhounds now make the passage in five days, and even less. His prophetic eye could see the steam cars running from New York to Boston, to Portland and then on to Halifax. Canada had at the time about twelve to fourteen miles of railway, from Laprarie to St. John’s. With these great facilities of railroads and steamships, he prophesied that foreign travel would increase, and if the civilized world would only live in peace, its increased prosperity and wealth would supply unexampled means. Canada was then an undeveloped country, and had the Free Press prophet lived till now, he would be overwhelmed with the great mining industries; and, getting down to Hamilton, the manufactories in the northeast end would take away his breath and he would thank the good Lord for the protective tariff that has accomplished such marvelous results. Nations, said the seer of ’36, will yet become acquainted with one another, and feel the force of each others’ opinion, as districts of the same country had in times past. It will be a mighty power, and must be beneficial. It must act upon a broad scale, and not be, like village opinion, a vexatious and almost personal interference with private life. It must mainly be sound and wholesome; it cannot skulk into lanes and bypaths, like a penny newspaper; its rebuke will be flung abroad upon the winds of heaven, and no noble act of government that can bear the light need fear it. It must be powerful. Let every unrighteous government fear something more immediately than the faint echoes of distant history. Let the outraged rights of humanity speak in thunder tones from every quarter of the heavens. Ah! Those old dreamers of three quarters of a century ago lived in an era of Arcadian simplicity. Bossism rules our politics of today and the thoughtful men leave the irresponsible to fight out the battle. Let all summoning voice call the oppressors of humanity before the bar of public opinion to answer.

1905-10-14 Saturday Musings

Saturday Musings Spectator October 14, 1905

          The old boys and girls who attended the Central school along in the fifties will remember William H. King, an attractive-looking young fellow who came from the neighbourhood of Brighton and was engaged as a teacher in the Central under Dr. John H. Sangster. King was fond of reading theological works when a youth, and his parents were hopeful that he might enter the church, and to that end spared no money in giving him a good education. But he fell in love with a farmer's daughter and contracted an early marriage, which turned his thoughts from theology to the practical ways of earning a livelihood. He entered the Normal school at Toronto and prepared himself for a teacher, and upon his graduation, there being a demand for Normal graduates, he was selected by Dr. Sangster as one of the Central corps of teachers. While teaching in this city he began the study of the homeopathic system of medicine, went to Philadelphia and took a college course and settled down at his old home in Brighton to practice his profession. King was unfortunate in his selection of a wife; she was inferior to him intellectually, and while he was advancing educationally, she kept in the old ruts of indifference. One child was born to them, which only lived a short time, and as his wife was about to become a mother a second time he killed her in a most heartless manner. King had become infatuated with a handsome, vivacious and educated young woman, and he felt he must have her as his wife. To clear the way for his marriage to her he administered arsenic in repeated doses to his wife. After giving the arsenic for some time, he changed his plan and tried chloroform., but in his wife's enfeebled condition from the effects 0f the arsenic, the chloroform proved too much for her and she died under the influence of the first dose. He was arrested and tried and found guilty of murder, and on June 9, 1859, was hanged publicly at Cobourg, over 5,000 persons witnessing the execution. The sheriff who had charge of the execution and the minister who attended King to the gallows had been playmates with him in his boyhood days. King professed sorrow for his crime when they were about to put the rope around his neck, but he attempted to justify his act by aspersing the virtue of his dead wife. Two or three of the teachers who taught in the Central with King will remember him well. One who was present at his execution described him as a fine-looking man, with a full beard and mustache. He was dressed in black, looked the gentleman, and there was nothing in his appearance that would lead one to suspect him of the crime of murder.

1905-10-07 Saturday Musings

Saturday Musings Spectator October 07, 1905

 We have worked together away back in the ‘50’s, my old friend and I, setting bourgeois type at twenty cents a thousand on the old Rochester American. He could “stick type” with the best of them, and his “string” at the end of the week measured up among the highest; but imagine if you can the yards of bourgeois one would have to get up in a week, at the union price of twenty cents a thousand, to pay board and wear decent clothes. And then when pay day came we got half we earned in cash and the other half we had to trade out of the store that advertised. Many years later we met in a western city. The years had dealt gently with him. His clothes were good, of the latest pattern and most fashionable cut. His watch chain was the heaviest of the heavy, and as fine as the purest gold. It surpassed in richness the gold chain that the King hung about the neck of the young prophet Daniel. His diamond pin twinkled like the evening star in a summer sky. His shirt bosom was as white as an infant’s soul, but his voice was sad and sorrowful. His boots were highly polished, and casually glancing at him from the ground up, one would swear that life for him had been one sweet song. It was a pleasant meeting for both of us, for we had not met since the day we parted in Rochester in ’52, when the union made a demand for twenty-three cents a thousand and as a result of our pernicious activity, both of us lost our cases. Tom drifted westward and I turned my toes eastward. The war of 1861 came on. He enlisted in an Illinois regiment and I sought glory at the cannon’s mouth with an Ohio regiment. While in the army, Tom spent his leisure hours studying the fascinating game of poker, and by the end of the war he was an expert. No more type setting for him. He was a cool-headed fellow, gentlemanly in his habits, but a typical gambler of the higher class. We were sitting in the rotunda of the hotel, talking over old times. He had never married; the girl he loved in his youth turned him down and married a man that made life miserable for her. Poor Tom was in a reminiscent mood, and tapping his boot with his natty ivory-headed cane, slipped down in his chair to give the base of his spinal column a rest, pulled his hat over his eyes, and languidly talked of his past life. He had given up the printing business because of the slavish life of setting type in a morning newspaper office. There was an infatuation about cards that drew him on, and as he was alone in the world, crippled by a rebel bullet during the war, for which Uncle Sam allowed him a pension, it mattered little to him what avocation he followed. Naturally he drifted into the story of his life as a gambler.

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        “Faro,” said he, “is a fascinating game. In all the games for gambling it has no equal. A man is a fool to play, but it catches the oldest of ‘em. The chances, on the closest calculations, are three to one on each play at the outset against the player, but I would rather run that chance than set twenty cent bourgeois as we did in Rochester. Occasionally the player strikes a winner, but we only win to lose. The most prosperous gamblers die in the gutter – unknown, forgotten and deserted. I wonder if fate has such luck in store for me! Luck only smiles on us for a brief season, and when fickle fortune deserts us, she never roosts over our doors again. Few of us are wise enough to save in luck in order to live in a rainy day. The pension Uncle Sam gives me and the soldiers’ home will always stand between me and a pauper’s home. But while we live, we live; and, after all, that is all there is in life. The hereafter is a chance, and the old man has put up the cards so well that nobody has called the turn. It’s a cat-hop at best. Gamblers are not utterly heartless. It makes my heart ache to see how many young men are drawn into the whirlpool and down to ruin. They begin betting on a game of baseball. They play the horses, and while they may make a killing now and then, the bookies generally get all the money there is in it. They get caught at a friendly game of draw, and in an evil hour try to even up on faro. They often win on the first venture, but it is a terrible success. They always pay one thousand per cent on the first winning, and often they pay life and blood in the investment. Some day there is a reckoning; they have tampered with their employer’s till or doctored the day book and ledger to cover a shortage in cash, and they skip out, leaving wife and family, or father and mother to bear the disgrace of a dishonest husband or son. The first winning opens a fascinating road to hell; builds up a barrier behind them which few ever climb over to reformation.

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        “A little sentimental, ain’t I?” Let’s go and have something. You don’t drink? Good. Barkeep, give me a whiskey punch light. I’m blue today, Dick. Gambling and its attendant excitement burn all the stamina out of a man. I wish I had never touched a card. Better for me had I stuck to the cases, even though it was setting solid bourgeois at twenty cents a thousand. But I am a born gambler. It’s in me; it always was, even when we used to “jeff” for pennies in the old American office, and I’m in it till the deal is out. I hate to see young men of promise at a gaming table or in a pool room chasing the ponies. They have wives and mothers who love them; they have good situations, and employers who trust them; the day they set foot in a gambling room, their fate is sealed. I have a case in mind now of a young fellow who was agent for a prominent firm and commanded a salary of $5,000 a year. In traveling, he got lonely; he played poker for amusement when business was over. He fooled with the tiger and found himself torn to pieces. To boost up his courage he drank too much budge. Today he is an outcast – drunken, broken, deserted. Only one out of thousands of cases. His wife was brought down from comfort to poverty, and she died of a broken heart. I would advise every young man and old man never to cross the threshold of a gambling house. I have made big winnings and I have had big losings. I was broke and down, but I am up in funds again. If I owned a good country printing office and had a wife and children, you would never catch me gambling again. But I’m in it and will be there till the taps sound “Lights out!” Good-bye Dick. This reunion brings back old times in Rochester when we set solid bourgeois for twenty cents a thousand.

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        On the morning of July, 7, 1859, John Mitchell was hanged in the jail yard in this city for the murder of Eileen Welch, a woman with whom he had been living. In January the couple came to this city from Toronto and secured lodgings in a tavern on York street. A few mornings after their arrival here, Mitchell and the woman had a row, and the wife of the tavern keeper and the servant girl heard screams and ran up to the room, where they found Mitchell and the woman struggling. Mitchell had cut the woman's throat from ear to ear with a razor, and she died within a few minutes. Mitchell came from Limerick, Ireland, where he had left a wife and children. He was arrested for the murder, and at the next assize court was found guilty and sentenced to be hanged. A girl had been born to the unfortunate couple, and on the night before the execution Mitchell asked to see the child. For the first time since the murder, he displayed sorrow for his crime. The execution took place between seven and eight o'clock in the morning, and even at that early hour fully 3,000 people had gathered in the vicinity of the court house. The housetops were covered with a morbid crowd, anxious to get a glimpse of the allows. Only those on the housetops could see into the jail yard, and after the drop fell they could not see the victim. This was the first execution that had taken place in Hamilton for twenty years. During the months of May and June of that year, no less than seven men were executed for murders committed in this section of Canada.

        That Hamilton has had to fight for its existence from its incorporation down to the present is an old, old story. When the building of a line of railway from Niagara to the Detroit river was first conceived nearly 70 years ago, although it was Hamilton men and Hamilton money that worked up the plan, rival points did everything  to obstruct it, even going so far as to appeal to legislative influence to sidetrack the city. But the men who were laying the foundations of this great manufacturing center were not to be defeated in their purpose, and the Great Western was built on the original lines. It was the first great through line built in Canada, and it made money from the start. The city of Hamilton took stock and borrowed the money to pay for it, and it was not many years before the dividends were larger than the interest. In an evil hour, the city council disposed of the railway bonds to speculators, and sold them on credit and what power the city had in the board of directors was lost forever. The first move made by the Great Western to the injury of Hamilton was when the shops were transferred to London. Then the company struck a body blow at the wholesale grocery trade in this city by exorbitant freight charges. On all goods denominated general groceries the charges were as follows:

        From Hamilton to London, per 100 lbs..............................30c

        From Montreal to London, per 100 lbs..............................25c

        From Buffalo to London, per 100 lbs.................................15c

        Such discrimination substantially put Hamilton in a hole, and its wholesale merchants were unable to compete for the trade which rightfully belonged to them on the point of location. The trade of London was entirely lost to Hamilton, as very naturally its merchants would not stand for the increase in freight charges. In the old days of wagon roads, before the Great Western was built, Hamilton was the natural source of supply for the merchants of Western Canada,, and at almost any hour of the day, lines of loaded wagons, with merchandise of every description, headed out of the city in every direction. It was then that Hamilton was in its glory as the great wholesale center, and while no great fortunes were made – for men did not make great fortunes in those days – its merchants were as solid as the rock in our far-famed mountain heights. It is unfortunately true that Hamilton has got the worst of it from nearly every great enterprise it has brought into being. It is about time the city had cut its eye teeth. Even in the piping of natural gas into the city, the consumers must pay a higher price for it than do towns where longer miles have to be laid from the base of supplies. And so it is with all the blessings that our natural location have endowed the city with. The next thing some company of financiers will be getting a monopoly of the bay. 
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That grand old man of the Salvation army, Gen Booth, prayed as follows the other day :

        And now, dear Lord, bless the reporters, whose nimble pens catch every word almost before it is uttered. Like Thyself, they are omnipresent and almost omnipotent. If we take the wings of the morning and fly off to the uttermost parts of the earth, they are there. They meet us in the jungles of Africa, they way lay us even on the Atlantic ocean, and when we tread the prairies of North America, behold! they are there. May their light and their goodness be equal to their power, and in the general assembly of heaven, let no reporter be excluded.

1902-05-02 Saturday Musings

Saturday Musings Spectator May 03, 1902

“Marriage is a solemn matter, but single life is much more so,” says Rev. Thomas B. Hyde, Cincinnati, Ohio. What with wars killing off the men, and the majority of births being girls, it is getting to be a serious question where the husbands are to come from. The last Dominion census shows that Hamilton has a population of 3.000 more females than males; and the chances are, when the footings for the whole Dominion are given, the same preponderance will exist in nearly all the cities and towns. The young men of the present day certainly have a large circle of fine-looking girls from which to make choice of life partners, and they are responsible for the dearth of marriage. Only give the girls a chance, and there will not be an eligible man in Hamilton without a wife at the end of sixty days. But the poor girls cannot propose, nor can they even hint to the young men that married life is more desirable without being charged with forwardness and immodesty. The chances are that there are dozens of young men in Hamilton today who would be glad to have homes of their own, and a good wife to make life one perpetual round of happiness, if they could only muster up courage to pop the question. Married life is the natural condition for healthy men and women, and it seems to be a crime against nature for so many bright young people to be living apart when a little finesse on the part of the girl could straighten out the tangle and create an immediate demand for marriage licenses and the services of a minister of the gospel.

Have you ever noticed the crowds that promenade King and James streets on Saturday night? The large majority are young people who are enjoying themselves at the close of the week’s work. It is their night off, and nothing is allowed to interfere with the pleasure of the promenade. The oldest inhabitant cannot remember when the custom began. Man may come and man may go, but the Saturday night promenade goes on forever. Away back, when the sexes in Hamilton were more equally divided than now, every boy had his girl to walk with, but nowadays one meets a cluster of girls wandering to and fro by themselves, and off in another gang is a lot of young men. It looks unnatural to say the least. The trouble with the young men of the present day is either backwardness in making the acquaintance of the girls, or a selfish spirit that fears the expense of keeping a wife. And it may be that the girls are not altogether without fault, for since they have been making their own way in the world, a feeling of independence has grown with their years, and they object to the cares and responsibilities of married life, unless they can begin house-keeping in an elegantly furnished house, with a piano in the parlor and a girl to do the kitchen work. Of course, all girls are not like those, but the young man, earning only small wages, does not feel like taking the risk.

The truth of the matter is the boys and girls of the present generation want a little more of the get-up-and-go spirit of their fathers and mothers, who married early and then went to work to accumulate enough of this world’s goods to keep them comfortable as they journeyed down the western slope of life. The old stagers who lived in Hamilton long before this great family journal was ushered into existence tell us of the good primitive days when young men began to brush up to the girls as soon as they became of age; and hat a young girl of eighteen who had not rejected half a dozen lovers was almost rare enough for the parks board to put into the museum of curiosities out in Dundurn Castle. Marriage licenses those days cost $1 each, but cared a young man; he could afford to pay it, as people did not fool away their money on bridal tours, but remained at home and began life in modestly furnished houses.

But things have changed since Hamilton passed the fifty thousand mark, and instead of every girl having at least one lover all to herself, the census shows that the city has a surplus of nearly three thousand women. Marriage may be a solemn matter, as the Cincinnati parson says, but certainly single life is much more so as viewed from the standpoint of the girls who are passing through the third decade of life without any brilliant prospect of making some bashful son of Adam happy. If the Spectator could only hit upon a plan o change the present order of things, we would gladly do so, but fate has placed this whole machinery of life in the hands of unmarried young men and women, and they must work it out as best they can. Of late years there has been a great deal said about marriage being a failure, but the facts are it is nip and tuck nowadays to find a young couple with nerve enough to get married. The young men must see to it that the surplus of unmarried girls is reduced. Hamilton wants more homes and fewer boarding houses.